Homeschool World Series Offers 'Different Kind of Baseball'

Monday

Apr 28, 2014 at 11:28 PM

The ­Homeschool World Series Association describes its World Series tournament as, "A different kind of baseball."

By BRADY FREDERICKSENTHE LEDGER

AUBURNDALE | The ­Homeschool World Series Association describes its World Series tournament as, "A different kind of baseball."Played by varsity-level teams of home-schooled athletes, the 24-team tournament has attracted squads from around the country to the Lake Myrtle Sports Complex. "It's great," said Warren Harvey, manager of the Raleigh Warriors from North Carolina. "Because we're a state where kids can't play in the local schools, we've tried to build a reputation with the local schools to say we're a competitive program, you can play us, we're not going to come out there and look bad."Harvey's team walked away from their tournament opener with a 10-3 win over the Nashville Monarchs on Monday thanks to a suicide squeeze bunt in the ninth inning by Harvey's son, Andrew. With the teams playing games from today to Saturday, the event has provided a free-of-charge alternative to normal prep baseball."It's a blast, I love it so much," Andrew Harvey said. "I've been down here around this a lot, and I just love it every time. It's probably my favorite week of the year."Like Raleigh, most teams in the tournament play in states where, unlike Florida, home-schooled students are not allowed to play with their local high school teams. Harvey's team plays a full regular season against public and private school teams in the Raleigh, N.C., area.But unlike the prep teams they play, the Warriors don't get to practice weekly. In fact, Andrew Harvey said they haven't had an actual practice since their first game of the season a few months ago."We're treated, in our region, just like a high school team," Harvey said. "Any team that plays us, we go on their record and they go on ours. … We've had guys go on to play at the next level."While the level of talent between teams isn't always even — they first play in pools before being divvied up by record into the Division I, II and III tournament pools — there are still players with a future playing in college. Doug Simons, the head baseball coach at Division III Covenant College in Georgia, has attended the tournament the past four seasons. It began as a chance to watch his home-schooled son play, but soon became an annual scouting trip. Four years later, the result is four players in his team's USA South Conference-winning lineup."It's been very successful for us. To me, I feel like I'm a glutton at an all-you-can-eat buffet and there's no one else in line," Simons said. "For us, this is a great pond to fish in, so that's why we come down every year."

[ Brady Fredericksen can be reached at brady.fredericksen@ theledger.com or 863-802-7553. You can follow him on Twitter @ Brady_Fred. ]